I have discussed my concerns about the impact of financial problems on nuclear safety in the United States. I have recently spent a lot of blog posts on problems involving civilian nuclear reactors in the United States but I have also mentioned and posted links about problems at governmental installation such as the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The Savannah River Site is a United States nuclear reservation twenty five miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia. The site was developed after World War II to refine nuclear materials that would be used to build nuclear weapons. The site is owned by the United States government and managed by a group of corporations. The great deal of the work currently being done at the site involves the cleanup of waste and pollution related to the work done for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. None of the reactors on the site are operating but two of the reactor buildings are being used to store nuclear materials. The site also includes the only radiochemical separation facility in the U.S. as well as the only tritium production facility in the U.S. Currently, they are constructing what will be the only mixed oxide fuel plant in the U.S. which will be able to convert nuclear weapons grade plutonium into fuel for commercial reactors. Both the clean up and production work at Savannah River are important for the United States weapons program and the U.S. civilian nuclear industry.

             The United States Congress drafted a plan to cut federal spending commonly referred to as the “sequester” back in 2012 during fierce partisan budget battles. The idea was that there would be a future date set for broad cuts mandated across a range of programs if a more agreeable budget could not be drafted by the deadline. The assumption was that since all sides of the argument would lose if the sequester was implemented, they would have sufficient incentive to come to some bipartisan agreement on a better budget by the deadline.  Unfortunately, that turned out not to be true. For a variety of reasons, a better budget was never agreed to and the sequester was implemented. The Republicans decried cuts to the defense budget and Democrats focused on cuts to the nation’s safety net for the poor. Buried in the sequester is a cut that has not gotten much press but is very worrisome.

              Under the sequester, the funding for the Savannah River Site has been cut by one hundred million dollars. There will be a loss of about one thousand workers which is about ten percent of the workforce. In addition, the scope of work will be narrowed. Because Savannah River is so important and cuts to their budget could endanger public safety, the Department of Energy is trying to shift about eighty millions dollars from other projects. However, this is not a simple process. Such shifting of funds is called “reprogramming” and it requires Congressional approval. DOE and the Office of Management and Budget are working on getting a proposal to two committees in the Senate and two committees in the House. The proposal is bundled along with a batch of measures for funding other nuclear facilities such as Hanford, Idaho National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge. The set of funding proposals has not made any progress since March 18^th.  If the money for Savannah River is not transferred by June 1, 2013, between seven hundred and nine hundred workers will be furloughed.

           My greatest fear for the future of the U.S. nuclear program, public and private, is that there will be steeply increasing costs associated with reactor problems and nuclear waste and that more and more critical work will be delayed or cancelled in coming budget battles. Eventually, there may be areas associated with nuclear facilities that are just fenced off and forgotten until some horrible accident forces us to pay attention to them.

Black soot, neutrons and early events in the Fukushima nuclear accident gets new concern. simplyinfo.org

Fukushima forests have been found to be radioactive. nuclear-news.net

Fire burning next to buried nuclear waste near St. Louis. enenews.com

Air Force sidelines 17 nuclear missile officers. washingtonpost.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 08, 2013

Ambient office = .118 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .133 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .114 microsieverts per hour

Redleaf lettuce from Costco = .107 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .075 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .067 microsieverts per hour

              One of the constant refrains heard from corporate officials in the United States is that the free market should decide which businesses succeed and which fail. An interesting theory but the market in the United States is anything but free.  There are the governmental regulations that businesses decry but they protect the interests and health of the citizens. There are also massive subsidies and tax breaks for corporations.  How can the “marketplace decide” if some companies are protected against failure by the U.S. Government. The banks that were too big to fail in the recent economic crash come to mind. 

             The nuclear industry has laws that limit the liability of nuclear power companies for costs associated with a major accident. They also receive loan guarantees from the Federal Government to build new reactors. There are even laws in some states that permit utilities to raise electricity rates for money to build new reactors.  They may be allowed to keep the money even if the new reactors never get built. As far as the marketplace goes, several reactors are being shut down and other may not be built in the United States because they cannot compete on price with other sources of electricity. If power generation were allowed to exist in the free market, that would be the end of nuclear power generation.

            The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has regulations that say that any operator of a nuclear reactor in the United States must be “financially qualified” to operate and maintain said reactor safely.  The reason for this regulation is the fear that if a company is not able to make a profit from an operation reactor, they may be tempted to reduce funding for things like repairs, monitors, emergency backup systems, staff training, etc. And, if a company does in fact do any of these things, the odds of a major accident at their reactor will increase.

            Entergy is a company which is involved in electrical energy generation and retail distribution. They began expanding into nuclear power generation in 1998 and currently own and operate twelve reactors in eight states. I have dealt with some of the Entergy reactors in previous posts. There have been shutdowns caused by equipment problems and reports of numerous NRC regulatory violations at Entergy reactors. Recently, their Palisades reactor was shut down because of radioactive water leaking into Lake Michigan. A recent column in the Motley Fool website suggests that Entergy is not looking like a good investment.

            Recently, a report from Union Bank of Switzerland, a financial services company, states that Entergy is operating two of its plants at a loss and may also be losing money on a third power plant. The two plants that are losing money are the James A FitzPatrick plant in Oswego, New York and the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, Vermont. The plant that may be losing money is the Pilgrim reactor in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

            The Citizens Awareness Network  (Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York), Alliance for a Green Economy (New York), Pilgrim Watch (Massachusetts), and Vermont Citizens Action Network (Vermont) have file a joint petition seeking to have the NRC enforce the regulation about financial qualification against Entergy. The petitioners mention a series of equipment failures and emergency shutdowns at the three plants and raise the question of whether the financial problems of Entergy are causing the company to cut outlays for equipment repairs and replacements.

 

            This is a perfect example of an issue I raised in a previous post. If Entergy should fail as a company and be unable to fulfill its obligation to deal with its reactors and their waste, who will pick up the cost? In the soft energy market of today, other utilities may be reluctant to buy nuclear plants which have been having serious and expensive problems. If those plants cannot be sold, then the U.S. taxpayer will have to bear the cost of either repairs or retirement and disposal of the fuel. These costs would run into the billions.

 

Marco Kaltofan announced last week some new understanding of the strange radioactive black sand being found in Japan. simplyinfo.org

There is cesium contamination of freshwater fish in Fukushima and Eastern Japan. enenews.com

Mystery bacteria ‘cobwebs’ found in Savannah River Site cooling tank. aikenstandard.com

Convoy carrying nuclear weapons parts halted day of Y-12 incursion while plant secured. knoxnews.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 07, 2013

Ambient office = .068 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .072 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .111 microsieverts per hour

Redleaf lettuce from Costco = .123 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .135 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .098 microsieverts per hour

 

         I have dealt in depth with the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in previous posts. Since the U.S. nuclear program which started in the 1940s, a great deal of nuclear research and production have been carried out at Hanford. Many different types of nuclear waste with varying degrees of radioactivity have been buried at Hanford. Some of the containers are leaking and radioactive contamination is moving into the ground water. A great deal of money and time have been spent trying to clean up the mess at Hanford with little success and no end in sight.

          In a previous post, I mentioned that some sort of radioactive sludge had been found between the shells of a double walled tank at Hanford. Contamination detectors and leak detector alarms indicated a problem at the tank over a year ago. Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), was paid nearly four hundred million dollars last year to managing the waste at Hanford. They said that there was no leak in the tank and that rainwater had gotten in to the space between the shells and set off the alarms. Only weeks after the first alarms went off, a technician was told to reset the alarms on the tank to a new zero setting so that the alarms would not be set off by the sludge. After repeatedly denying that there was a leak in the tank, the company has finally begun working on the possibility that there is a leak after all.

          Why would the company managing the waste be reluctant to report a leak and deal with it? Bob Alvarez, a nuclear advisor for President Clinton, says that for decades there has been a culture of denial at Hanford where reporting problems has been frowned upon. Companies are given specific tasks and deadlines at Hanford and receive bonuses when those tasks are accomplished on time. If there are unexpected problems that may delay completion of tasks, then those bonuses may be endangered. Last year, WRPS received over twenty three million dollars in bonuses from the Department of Energy. Reporting and working on the leak in the double shelled tank might have increased costs and reduced bonuses. The economic incentive for the company working to cleaning up Hanford is biased in the direction of not reporting problems. It should be just the opposite.

             The Columbia is one of the biggest rivers in the United States. It is used for irrigation, watering cattle, municipal water supplies, industry, etc. Some radioactive waste was just dumped in pits at Hanford decades ago and, working its way through the water table, wound up polluting the Columbia with cesium and other radioactive materials, as well as toxic metals and chemicals. To prevent more contamination of the Columbia, waste was stored in single walled tanks and buried. Some of the old single wall tanks began leaking radioactive sludge into the ground. They are working on putting the worst of the leaking wastes into the double walled tanks which are not suppose to leak. If there are leaks in the double walled tanks, that will be a major threat to the environment and a major cost to the State and the contractors. Gary Locke, an ex-Governor of Washington State, has said that Hanford is an “underground Chernobyl” just waiting to happen.

Drainage basin of the Columbia River from Kmusser.

TEPCO is using remote controlled truck to collect highly radioactive debris in the Unit 3 reactor. ex-skf.blogspot.jp

Japan has learned from the Fukushima disaster and will offer technology with the highest safety standards while building Turkey’s second nuclear plant, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on May 3. ajw.asahi.com

Mysterious radioactive rain fell recently in Brazil. radiationnews.blogspot.co.uk

India’s Supreme Court has cleared for operation a Russia-backed nuclear power plant that has been the subject of widespread protests by locals in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. online.wsj.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 06, 2013

Ambient office = .049 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .067 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .095 microsieverts per hour

Iceberg lettuce from Costco = .107 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .124 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .097 microsieverts per hour

Ukraine will cover the collapsed roof of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with special resin to prevent the spread of radioactive dust. nzweek.com

Drugs from Amgen Inc, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Sanofi that boost white blood cells are being evaluated by U.S. regulators as treatments for radiation exposure caused by a nuclear attack or accident.  huffingtonpost.com

Greater Chattanooga area nuclear plants rank high for complaints to NRC. timesfreepress.com

Operators of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in southwestern Michigan removed it from service Sunday morning because of a water leak from a tank, which last year caused seepage into the control room. hollandsentinel.com